Laugh Lines
by KChasm
Summary: It's an amusing shape. :25 sentences, 30 Days of Writing, prompt: restless:


Wuh—no—I didn't miss two days, _you_ missed two days. Anyway, twenty-five sentences from twenty-five words, chosen from . 's April 2012 archives. Why April? 'Cause it's the month for fools. Incidentally, I've put 'em alphabetical, but you can still get a rough guess of the order I wrote 'em in if you sort 'em from least to most depressing.

Nagaru Tanigawa, Haruhi, not me. How is it 6:25 already?

* * *

**alley-oop**

The baseball game, he decides later when the furor has finally died down and he can look back at everything with a discerning eye: that's when it all started, with Tsuruya in her sports jacket zipped up to the collar and her hair swept into a hasty—ponytail.

**bluff**

Nagato knows, Asahina probably knows, and Koizumi _definitely_ knows, which means the only person getting lied to who doesn't know is Haruhi—business as usual.

**bonanza**

There are people who accuse him of stringing her along for her money, and he's never sure how to explain that money is the _least_ of his concerns.

**countenance**

The _majority_ of the Agency views the relationship between him and Tsuruya as inconducive to Haruhi's continued mental stability—Koizumi tells him this quietly, cup of coffee in one bandaged hand, and Kyon hears what goes unsaid.

**doldrums**

Because it's nice to do new things, fun things, exciting things, but sometimes it's the quiet parts in between that are the most important (and she'll pull him along for those, as well).

**elan**

She lives in a different world than he does—a world that's brilliant and beautiful and exciting, where that smile is _justified_ (and sometimes he wishes he could live in that world, too, but he suspects it'd only exhaust him).

**foible**

She laughs at everyone and everything and sometimes he can't tell if she's taking him seriously at all.

**forte**

The night Kyon finds out there's a split within the Agency is the same night he finds out that Tsuruya is skilled in hand-to-hand combat (you _knew_ I was athletic, she says afterwards, and he has no idea how to respond to that).

**gloze**

It would be kind of hard to explain to Tsuruya why he's being so secretive without actually _explaining_ to Tsuruya why he's being so secretive, so it's just as well that she already knows what's going on without actually _knowing_ what's going on.

**groundswell**

He's always enjoyed talking to her, always thought she was beautiful in an abstract sort of way, but the odd surge of attraction when she smiles at him is something new.

**hector**

He's been expecting the lecture from Koizumi for days, but when it finally comes (Haruhi, Haruhi's emotions, _closed space_), he finds the best he can offer in response is a halfhearted, nearly sarcastic suggestion to deal with things one at a time.

**kickshaw**

Tsuruya means well, he knows, but he always feels out of place whenever he stays over for dinner—the food is too fancy, the helpings too great, and even the plates look like they cost more than his tuition.

**mayday**

"Kyon," she says, and even over the phone there's something in that singsong voice of hers that sounds a little too distant, a little too strained, "some guy just showed up all of a sudden asking for you—pretty mysterious—says he's called _Fujiwara_—"

**mentor**

She tells him who to greet, and who to meet, and what to wear, and how to speak, and when her relatives have finally gone he collapses next to her and mutters that he's _not_ Eliza Doolittle, which of course sends her into a long-delayed paroxysm of laughter.

**nestor**

He meets a distant uncle of Tsuruya's—funny and kind and good with animals and a wonder in the kitchen and not in the least bit curious about the relationship between the two of them which is how he knows he's a plant.

**paragon**

It would be funny if it didn't make her feel like an idiot; all that time she worried about Mikuru, and sometimes Yuki, and it was the _honorary consultant_ she had to watch out for (Tsuruya would've found it funny anyway, she thinks, and scowls).

**parry**

Be her friend and she'll laugh and joke and thump you on the back; be her enemy and she'll laugh and joke and thump you on the back and you won't realize you've been insulted till she's five minutes gone.

**riposte**

They've had arguments, arguments he's always lost because she takes his words and twists them, turns them, ties them into knots till he can't remember if he was _for_ or _against_ and he wouldn't mind so much if she only stopped smiling while she did it, just for a moment.

**satyr**

She teases him as much as she ever did but now there's the possibility she means it and it is _driving him mad_.

**scupper**

He couches his words in nonspecificity and vagueness, putting forth only the _notion_ of a hypothetical somebody who might prefer them broken up, but she's secure in her confidence: "If it comes to that, they'll definitely fall to the combined might of the Tsuruya-Kyon Alliance!" she says, and laughs.

**scuttlebutt**

There are rumors, of course—but there were always rumors, and compared to the ones about him and Haruhi (and him and Nagato, and him and Asahina) these ones seem particularly unlikely.

**tarry**

Another late meeting is another date canceled is another maybe-next-time that even he can't believe in anymore.

**tartar**

She makes lemon meringue pie and he doesn't even enter the kitchen but she gets whipped cream on his face anyway.

**toot sweet**

And suddenly she's dragging him down the hall, her hand tight around his, laughing at some joke she hasn't explained yet, and all he can think is that it's nice to pulled by something other than his collar for once.

**touché**

"I've got complete faith in Kyon's judgment," she says, and cups his tired face in her hands, "because out of all the mega-amazing people Kyon hangs out with every day—you chose _me_."


End file.
